“Yet, if she knew, do you think she would tell anyone, Father? If telling would cost her so much?”
“Truly, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Perhaps she threw it out to protect the both of them, as we thought earlier. Well, tomorrow will settle it, I hope. I’ll go see the constable with the gown, and let him decide, once he’s seen the matching ribbons.”
“Oh, Father, you know Swann won’t want to know anything damning about the Moores! What can we expect him to do?” Bess fretted.
“That’s up to the law, Bess, imperfect as it may be. S’pose it would go down better if Mr Marsden the magistrate was present, too. I believe I’ll insist on his presence, yes. Well,” he said again, “this has been an exciting afternoon and evening. But it’s time for bed.”
“Yes, Father,” Bess agreed dutifully, though she was certain a good night’s sleep would be impossible.
“Blow out the candles. I’ll light my own way. And keep this mysterious bundle in my room tonight. Sam’l, do you escort me to the chandlery in the morning, and we’ll fetch the bouquet from my desk so we may take both to the courthouse.”
“Yes, Father. Goodnight, sir.”
Chapter 24
MATTHEW LIVESEY wasn’t having much luck falling off to L sleep, tossing and turning and punching his pillows in frustration, long after the last glim had been extinguished. Samuel could be heard snoring deeply across the hall; the mattress ropes in Bess’s chamber squeaked now and then as she tossed and turned as well.
Finally, except for the loud clacking of the mantel clock, the house was still. He yawned widely, stretched and turned his mind to another topic, one less fevered and dubious. Bess and Andrew Hewlett: should he put too much faith in that alliance? They were very young, still, though people in the Carolinas seemed to marry young, as Mr Lakey had pointed out. He fell asleep at last, dreaming of what the future might be like.
CRASH! The tinkling ofglass! Ominous thudding noises!
Matthew Livesey jerked awake, found himself sitting up in bed of an instant, imagining the worst. Wishing he’d kept a pistol from the mantel on his bed table! It sounded as if someone, or a pack of someones, hadjust burst through the front door!
“Sam’l!” he yelled. “Get a gun!”
His door flew open, making him gawp with fright! It was not an intruder, but Samuel in his long nightshirt.
“Go! Protect the house!” he ordered, rolling to sit on the side of the bed and grope for his prosthetic. “I’ll be along!”
“Father?” Bess screamed.
“Stay in your room, Bess!” he wailed in reply.
“There’s afire!” she howled back.
“Oh, God!” he moaned, shoving his stump into the cup. “Get out! Get out of the house, this instant!” He looked up long enough to see a ruddy fluttering reflected from the cream-painted wooden walls of the hallway. His fingers lost their sureness on the buckles and straps. Afire! Wilmington’s plague!
At last! He swung to his feet, lurched for the hallway, peeking round the doorjamb toward the growing, hungry flickerings. There were flames eating at the porch beyond, at the front door. Bess was flinging a bucket of water at it.
“Careful, Bess!” he ordered, thundering down the hallway. “I’m coming! Sam’l, get the fire-buckets! Bess, wake the neighbors! Get out the back door!”
Every house was required to have water-butts and buckets ready and filled, against this very calamity. Few did, though, and no one ever seemed to be fined for their lack.
Matthew Livesey reached the kitchen and picked up a full wooden pail as Bess went haring out the back, clad only in her nightgown, to raise the hue and cry. He saw that the small kitchen window facing the street was broken out, and flames licked at the bottom sill. He threw up the sash and began dousing the flames. Samuel came lurching from the side garden and the well with another bucket, which he threw onto the porch.
“Just the porch so far, Father,” Samuel puffed. “Hasn’t reached the roof! Damme!”
The water only seemed to spread the fire! Though some was out, it seemed to slide to some new place to sprout again!
“Sand, Sam’l! Get the shovels! It’s a lamp-oil fire!”
Livesey went out the back door himself, to the tool shed. They kept garden spades there. He and Samuel collided at the shed’s door, tangled for a terror-filled moment, before Samuel entered the shed.
“Dig, boy!” he snapped as Samuel dashed off for the front of the house ahead ofhim. “Smother it like a ship’s fire, down low!”
Bess’s frantic screams had awakened some of their neighbors at last. There were people in the street, dashing to help with buckets, some with shovels and tools of their own.
“Water aloft!” Livesey shouted to them. “Keep it from climbing to the roof!” He began to dig into the sandy roadway, flinging great, hopeless showers of soil onto the porch boards, gasping and panting as he quickly wore out. Wishing he was half ‘the man he used to be!
Finally, he could do no more than lean on his shovel and shake with exhaustion. But the fire was subdued. The roof shakes were wet and dripping, the charred porch columns only smoked, and the boarding across the front of the house, around the doors and windows, was shiny, treacle-black, but saved. With pry bars and crow-levers, axes and more water, the porch boards were got up, so every last lingering spark was extinguished.
“Lantern turned over?” Constable Swann asked, gulping for air by his side. He’d thrown on a pair of breeches and shoes, and a heavy dressing robe to rush to the scene. “Smells like oil.”
“No, Constable,” Livesey groaned. “We’d put it out before we retired. ‘Least I think we did. Sam’l, did you put out the porch lamp?”
“Yes, sir! It was out, sure enough.”
“There it is, though,” Swann pointed out. “Ya use whale oil?”
“Yes.”
“Was it full?”
“I don’t know. At least half full, I think.”
The cheap lantern now lay on its side on the porch, far from the bracket which usually held it. Swann picked it up and felt inside.
“Empty now,” he said. “Bung’s out. Musta fallen.”
“But the bracket’s on the other side of the door, Constable. It couldn’t have fallen that far,” Livesey disagreed, now that he had his breath back. “And it was extinguished, hours ago. What time is it?”
“‘Round two o’ the mornin’, or so.” Swann shrugged. “I didn’t stop t’look at a clock.”
“And thank God for your alacrity, sir. Thank God for you all, to come to our rescue so promptly!” he told his gathered neighbors.
“Wasn’t just f’r you, Livesey,” Swann allowed, scrubbing his unshaven chin with a rough hand. “Your place took alight, th’ whole damn side o’ the street’d gone up like kindlin’.”
“We went to bed a little after ten, sir,” Livesey informed him in a softer voice. “And the lamp was out. Sam’l knows better than to leave it burning, I assure you.”
“Lucky y’all woke up, then. Somebody hallo ya, when they saw the fire?”
“No. It was breaking glass,” Livesey told him. “Sounded like someone was breaking in. You can see the front door glass broken out.”
“Fire sometimes does that.” Swann sighed. “Usually not so small a fire, though. Has t’get really roarin’ first.”
“Father?” Bess said, coming out onto the porch from inside.
“You went back in?” he demanded, aghast.
“I had to see if it had spread inside, sir!” she cried. “Just now. And I found this.”
She handed them a large lump of rock, bound in paper and tied with rough twine. Several corners were square, like a brick scrap.
“It was in the middle of the carpet,” she said. “Someone threw it through the door glass, I think.”
“This was a set fire, Constable Swann,” Livesey announced.
Aww, now …
“And here’s proof of it, sir!” Livesey snarled. “Someone tried to burn us
out tonight, sir! Had they not thrown this through the window, we’d have roasted in our sleep!”
“Hang on, hang on,” Swann cautioned, using his teeth to undo the knots in the twine. “Let’s see what we got here, ‘fore we go offhalf-cocked.”
Constable Swann got the twine off and unwrapped the pale brick shard. The paper was stiff and new. “Feels like good stuff. Costly,” Swann commented. “Hmm. Got a light inside? Best if we … ye know.” He shrugged dramatically at the milling neighbors.
They went inside the house, and by the light of four candles, read:
Newcomes!
Keep Yr. noses out of
our Business or
we will Stop yours!
Call off your Bitch
& sing small!
This your only
Warning!
“Do you see now, sir?” Livesey demanded hotly. “The fire was set. Good God! The chandlery! The millyard!”
Livesey dashed back to the porch, fearing that the arsonists had torched his other properties. Thankfully, though, there was no smoke or light beyond the dull glims of night lamps along Chandler’s Wharf, and no greater glow across the river beyond the usual dully red night fires under the rendering vats. He heaved a huge sigh of relief that he’d not been ruined again. Yet. Deadly as the fire could have been, it had been meant as a brutal warning. But by whom, he fretted?
If the arsonist had meant real harm, there would have been no note through the window to wake them before the fire had gotten so well-fed they would have smothered on its smoke, and died unknowing, or woke too late to escape, girded by a thousand tongues of flame.
And why tonight, he wondered? What made some person, or persons, so desperate? The dress! In spite of Jemmy Bowlegs’s proud boast, could someone have followed him and Autie? Could someone have been standing watch over the Moore house, seen them recover the damning evidence, and decided to act to protect the Moores? Or Osgoode himself, glancing out his window by happenstance, the very moment Bowlegs was at the trash barrel, knowing the game was up if that evidence was found?
Shaky as the scrawl on the note appeared, it could have beenjust about anyone who’d written it—a barely literate tough, or a cultured gentleman using his cack-hand to disguise himself. A lone perpetrator thinking he was covering his tracks—or a desperate cabal of faction men. It did say “We will stop your business,” after all!
Yet, which faction, then?
“So you’ve warned me, by God!” Livesey muttered to himself. “We get your message!” Teeth clenched, hands fisted so hard his nails almost cut his palms, he shivered with late-blooming anger. “Why not the shop, though, or the mill, or …”
The chandlery still stood! he gaped. Whoever, whichever faction, had done it, didn’t know about the bouquet of flowers! Yet the dress had called forth this violence! Why? Or had it?
The ribbon off the bouquet led to the gown. Yet if the person who’d warned them didn’t know about the bouquet, then what possible threat could the gown pose to them, which would have demanded such a dire threat?
He stumbled back inside, past Samuel, who was doling out mugs of ginger-beer in gratitude to his thirsty, smoke-blackened and now much-relieved neighbors.
“Constable Swann, let me have another peek at that note, will you, sir?” he bade. “There’s something pow’rful queer …”
Chapter 25
THIS … SHITE, is goin’ to cease!” Magistrate Marsden swore, squinting so angrily at a much-chastened Constable Swann that he might be mistaken for a one-eye. Evidently, before Livesey had been called to the courthouse, Marsden had had some rather scathing words with him. “My word ‘pon it, sirs!”
The magistrate turned to hawk a juicy dollop of tobacco juice into a wooden pail he used for a spitkid by his chair. The magistrate despised smoking as a heathen practice, fit only for pagans, meaning Indians and back-country bumpkins—or for indolent, ignorant Spaniards, meaning Catholics. Chewing, Mr Marsden thought, was the proper, Christian manner God intended tobacco to be enjoyed by Mankind—which meant Protestant, Church of England Christians.
“I’m much gratified to hear that, sir,” Livesey replied as the magistrate turned the one recognizable eye in his black glower on him. “This affair must, indeed, be brought to a speedy conclusion.”
“Pretty much what my marchin’ orders were from King Roger,” Marsden grunted, crossing his legs and irritably flicking at the damp grass cuttings on his silk hose. “Settle it, by God. Settle it for good an’ all. No more o’ this shilly-shallyin’. ‘Fore anyone else is killed. If it takes martial law in th’ borough to do it!”
“Martial law, sir?” Livesey puzzled. “Won’t that…?”
“Got packs o’ hotheads, on both sides, ready to tangle, Mr Livesey,” Marsden mumbled as he shifted his cud from one side of his mouth to the other. “Here ’tis Saturday market day, that’ll bring ’em outa th’ woods like yer hound’d fetch a herd o’ ticks. People are hot, damn hot, ‘bout yer fire last night. ‘Fore trouble breaks out, we’d best overawe th’ bastards. Why I sent down to Fort Johnston for men, to keep th’ borough quiet whilst we sort this out.”
Marsden leaned over to spit again, wiping his chin with a silk pocket kerchief. “Swann, go see if they’re here yet. Do somethin useful, for once.”
“Troops in the streets, sir?” Livesey paled.
“Aye, if that’s what it takes.” Marsden nodded affably. “Now, let’s see what all th’ fuss is about. Show me yer stuff, Livesey.”
Livesey laid his bundle on a side table. Marsden got to his feet, leaned over to inspect the evidence, and sniffed.
“Damme, the wife’s got a gown damn-near th’ spittin’ image o’ this, sir.” He smirked. “Didn’t look half so fetchin’ as Anne Moore in it, though. I tell ye, Mr Livesey, this doesn’t look half so imposin’ as I thought it would, either. Not a reason to kill for this note …”
“We think it was a warning, sir.”
“Aye.” Marsden nodded, peering at the note briefly. He tossed it back onto the bundle and stalked back to his spitkid to release a cheekful. He settled himself back into his high-backed chair like a man with no cares in the world, shot his cuffs, crossed his legs, and began to hum a tune to himself.
“That part about ‘newcomes,’ sir,” Livesey began in the uneasy silence. The magistrate promised action, and a quick solution, but he looked as witless and breezy as Swann did!
“Hmm?”
“That could mean it was written by someone long-established on the Cape Fear, sir,” Livesey commented. “And the plural ‘we,’ well … it could mean a faction.”
“Umhmm,” Marsden agreed, tugging at his periwig to settle it straighter on his head. “It could.”
“Forgive me for saying so, Mr Marsden, but that could mean either faction,” Livesey dared to hint. “Harry’s, or the barons.”
“Granted,” Marsden said with a sage nod.
“Well, then …”
Squit, Marsden commented into his spitkid. “I mean …” Livesey prompted, shrugging.
“Means we question everybody, Mr Livesey, faction be-damn,” Marsden said at last. “Look ye, though. A lady’s gown … Anne Moore’s gown, in point o’ fact. Flowers, tied with ribbon from that gown. I ask ye, does that sound like faction? Or does it smack o’ sinful fornicatin’? Adultery, sir! Heathen, willful adultery!”
Squit, went another dollop; the prim old stick’s baleful opinion of such doings.
“Yes, but the wording of the note, sir …it…”
“Words written to throw us off th’ scent, sir!” Marsden hooted. “To lay suspicion away from th’ murderer, I warrant. Th’ murderer who was in town yesterday, last night. Th’ one who saw yer minion Bowlegs fetch this up, an’ tried to burn ye out. To warn ye off, maybe even to destroy th’ gown into th’ bargain!”
“That could be, Mr Marsden,” Livesey had to allow at last.
“Ye’ll stay for th’ qüestionin’.” The magistrate said, raising an eye
brow to make it appear a request. “Ye’ve delved deeper than any. Swann, well… he told me what ye told him, but damme if I wasn’tjust as confused when he ended as when he first started.”
“Um. Just whom will you be questioning, then, sir?” Livesey inquired.
“Thought I’d begin with yer ferryman, MacDougall. Then Anne Moore an’ Osgoode. See where it leads.” Marsden shrugged, waving his hands with what seemed an airy disregard. “Ye’ll stay?”
“I should be honored, sir,” Livesey replied, putting a hand to his breast and dropping the magistrate a short bow of thanks.
There was a soft rap on the door. “Come!” Marsden barked.
“Sir!” the Army officer snapped as he entered, trailed by one other. “Captain Buckles, sir… 16th Regiment of Foot. Your servant, sir. Leftenant Sturtt, sir… my second-in-command.”
Introductions were made, all round. Captain Buckles was a florid man, his gingery complexion red as his scarlet coat or crimson rank sash. Lieutenant Sturtt was darker, wirier, one of those idly too-handsome sorts to be found in any regimental mess—a second son from an average family of the squirearchy. Livesey thought him about mid-twenties, or so.
“Well now, Mr Marsden,” Buckles sighed at last. “I’ve my troops waiting at the wharf. What exactly is it we’re to do, sir?”
“A whole line company of sixty men?” Livesey puzzled, worried.
“Two files of ten, sir,” Lieutenant Sturtt supplied with a grin. “We have no more than a half-battalion, the entire colony! Served, did you sir?” he asked, glancing down to Livesey’s artificial limb.
“Fort Dusquesne.” Livesey nodded, gruffly prideful for once.
“My admiration, sir.” Sturtt bowed. “And my condolences.”
What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear Page 22
